Listen for Leaders (11/7/03)
by Dean Hartwell
Recently, my wife went to see her doctor. It was a routine checkup, which the doctor performed with her usual skill. Then something unexpected happened.
Her doctor related that she totally supported President Bush in the war against Iraq. She went on to say that the United States must kill the people behind the attacks of September 11 before they kill us. Invading Iraq, in her opinion, worked toward this goal.
Sometimes politicians confront us with ideas we do not like. Robert Kennedy, for example, faced off with college students during his campaign for president in 1968.
He would ask them to raise their hands if they supported the Viet Nam War. Typically, most of the students would raise their hands. But when he asked who had received a student draft deferment, the same hands would stay up.
He asked them how they could support a war they avoided service to. The question did not likely win him support, but it illustrated a brave style of leadership.
John Anderson showed this brand of leadership in his presidential campaign in 1980. He and the rest of the Republican candidates received invitations to speak to a group of voters in Iowa.
One by one, the Republican candidates expressed their displeasure with Democratic President Jimmy Carter’s embargo of grain to the Soviet Union, who had just recently invaded Afghanistan.
All of the candidates, that is, except for Anderson. He said it wasn’t “easy…in the heart of Iowa, in farm country, to support an embargo on the shipment of grain.” But he also said that in the first real test of responding to the Soviet Union’s aggression, his opponents had been “unwilling to accept any measure of sacrifice.” (Bisnow, Mark. Diary of a Dark Horse: The 1980 Anderson Presidential Campaign. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983)
More recently, Joe Lieberman spoke at an Arab-American leadership conference. He talked about how Israelis were victims of Palestinian terrorism and how Israel had the right to build a wall around disputed territory. (http://www.freep.com/news/locway/dems18_20031018.htm)
Some of the Arab-Americans booed him repeatedly. But Lieberman made his point – he would take the same position on the issue regardless of the audience.
Anderson told me that he frequently reads the writings of those with whom he disagrees in order to “stay awake.” Indeed, it is hard to solve problems when people around us tell us only what we want to hear.
My wife did not agree with her doctor. But, she listened to what she said. Afterwards, she told her doctor, “I respect your opinion even though I do not agree with it.” Like my wife, we sometimes find ourselves listening to people with whom we have valid differences of opinions.
If we keep listening, we will find leaders whose express themselves in a manner that shows real courage. As we prepare to choose the leader of the United States in one year, it is a concept voters ought to remember.